8o POPULAR GARDEN FLOWERS 



blusterous winds. It likes peace and quietude. Of 

 course, it is hardy. It will not be killed by cold. But 

 there is a difference between merely living and passing 

 a happy, healthy, joyous existence. 



Lovers of the Christmas Rose who really want it as 

 a Christmas flower should give it a sheltered position. 

 There ought to be sheltered places in every border of 

 any size, because the owner will have worked in a few 

 evergreen shrubs or conifers. These divide the border 

 into " bays," and prevent the winter winds from sweep- 

 ing in a savage, mad-dog rush from end to end, and 

 tearing off every green leaf or blossom that ventures to 

 show itself. 



Another plan of providing shelter is to leave the old 

 stems of herbaceous plants on until spring ; but this is 

 abhorrent to any mind with a sense of neatness and 

 order. 



Christmas Roses will do perfectly well under trees if 

 they have shelter of some kind, such as a windscreen in 

 the form of a neighbouring belt of shrubs, or the fronds 

 of hardy ferns around them. The latter have not the 

 ugliness and disorder of decaying herbaceous plants 

 when they are turning brown. Some pretty, dwarf, 

 winter-flowering bulbs, such as Snowdrops, Scillas, and 

 Glory of the Snow, may be dotted among the Christmas 

 Roses. The last-named (Chiondoxa) is a beautiful little 

 blue bulb that one can buy for about three shillings per 

 hundred in autumn. 



With a reasonable allowance of mild weather in 

 autumn, and shelter, there certainly ought to be flowers 

 on the Christmas Roses at Yuletide ; in fact, if several 

 different varieties are grown, there will be flowers before, 

 at, and after Christmas. There are Christmas Roses 

 that bloom early and Christmas Roses that bloom late. 



